Saint Kevin of Glendalough (c. 498–618)

A name meaning "well born"

The saint's name is spelled, according to the manuscripts, Coemgen, Coemgin, Caoimhghin, Koemgenus or Keivinus — all these spellings being pronounced very similarly, the Irish C always standing for K, and the diphthong CE reducing to the simple sound É^[5]. Archbishop James Ussher, one of the first Protestant scholars to have seriously studied the ancient Irish sources, translates this name into Latin as Pulcher-genitus, "the fair-born" or "the well born"^[6]. Hagiographical tradition reports that this name was given to him, from birth, by an angel who blessed the child on the way to his baptism — a motif found, almost identically, in the Lives of many other great Irish saints of the early Middle Ages, where the birth of a future founder is almost always announced by a dream or an angelic apparition addressed to one of his parents^[7].

An ancient source, woven with avowed legends

Almost all that is known of Kevin comes from an anonymous Latin Life, the Vita Sancti Coemgeni, written — by the Bollandists' own estimate — no later than the twelfth century, on the basis of a still older oral and written tradition: the text indeed assumes Glendalough to be still flourishing, whereas by the thirteenth century the episcopal see had already declined into an insignificant village, which pushes the composition back at least a century earlier^[8]. This Life, organized in six chapters and forty-nine paragraphs, was published in full by the Bollandists in the Acta Sanctorum, with a critical commentary by Fr Francis Baert^[9].

Fr Baert had at first considered cutting the most marvellous tales of this Life to keep only a sober summary; in the end he gave up the idea, judging that even the most legendary passages shed light on the real state of Glendalough at the time of writing, and that the traditions concerning miracles, without always reporting exact facts, at least faithfully attest to what was then told of the saint^[10]. This critical prudence — more than three centuries old — remains the best reading guide: the historian finds in it solid landmarks (genealogy, foundations, datable contemporaries), the believer finds in it the spiritual portrait of a man of God, and the two readings, far from excluding each other, illuminate each other.

A family of the Dál Messin Corb nobility

Kevin was born in the east of the province of Leinster, probably in the first decades of the sixth century — the traditional date of 498, retained by Ussher, rests on a single calculation: tradition credits the saint with a life of one hundred and twenty years, and his death being fixed at 618, his birth is deduced as 498^[11]. Several internal chronological clues in the Life — notably the dates of his brother and nephew — nevertheless make this dating fragile, and his birth most probably has to be moved a little later into the sixth century^[12].

His father, Coemlog (or Coemlugus), and his mother, Coemell, belonged to a high-ranking family called in the sources the Dál Messin Corb^[13]. This dynasty, which once dominated part of the Liffey plain before being pushed back towards the Wicklow mountains by the rising power of the Uí Dúnlainge, traced its genealogy to Laeghaire Lore, the legendary ancestor from whom all Leinstermen are said to descend^[14]. According to Saint Kevin's own Life, his father, though of royal blood, had voluntarily renounced his inheritance and rank "to lead a more godly life", content to live by the work of his hands^[15].

A sceptical eighteenth-century antiquary, the Reverend Edward Ledwich, had thought he could deny even Kevin's historical existence, claiming his name derived from a mere Welsh place-name designating a mountain. The great ecclesiastical historian John Lanigan answered him with biting irony, observing that this same Ledwich, when it suited him, praised on the contrary the high degree of civilization and writing in Ireland as early as the fifth century — but denied it as soon as it came to recognizing the authenticity of a saint's genealogy^[16]. This scholarly episode, two centuries old, illustrates a rule that keeps all its value: the genealogy of the Irish saints, however astonishing it may seem to a modern eye, belongs to a culture in which oral genealogical transmission was a learned and rigorously taught art, not a popular fancy^[17].

The announcing angel and baptism by Cronán

Saint Kevin's Life opens, on the classic pattern of Irish hagiography, with the angelic announcement of his birth. An angel is said to have appeared in a dream to Coemell, saying to her:

"O happy woman, thou shalt bear a son, and thou shalt call him Coemgen. He shall be dear to God and to men, and he shall be the father of many monks. The grace of the Holy Ghost shall abound in his place; but, from his birth, let him at once be carried to baptism." — Vision reported in the Vita Sancti Coemgeni^[18]

In accordance with this announcement, the child was carried to baptism; on the way, his bearers met a young man of great beauty who blessed the child in the name of the Trinity before disappearing — an angel, as they afterwards understood. Arrived at the priest Cronán's, the latter first refused to baptize again a child already blessed by a celestial being, before crying out, seized with a prophetic spirit:

"O fair child of God, may the Lord Almighty bless thee; I shall be thy first monk, and I give thee my place with all that I possess." — Cronán, according to the Vita Sancti Coemgeni^[19]

The commentator Baert sensibly notes that this tale raises a theological difficulty — a mere angelic breath could not, without water, constitute a valid baptism — but he sees in it above all the trace of a stock motif of Irish hagiography, in which the birth of the great saints is almost systematically announced and blessed in advance^[20].

The white cow and childhood at pasture

During his childhood, a white cow came every morning and every evening to feed the child with her milk, though none ever knew whence she came nor whither she went — two great vessels of milk were gathered each day^[21]. Grown into a boy, Kevin kept his parents' sheep with other shepherds; one day, poor men came begging alms of him, and he gave them four sheep of the flock. In the evening, when the flock was counted, the number proved complete — a sign, for his biographers, that God already in his childhood willed to reward his generosity and shield him from all reproach^[22].

Under Saint Petrocus, from seven to twelve

About the age of seven, his parents entrusted him to a holy man of British origin, Petrocus — the future Saint Petroc of Cornwall, who had left his native kingdom to embrace the monastic life and was then living as a hermit in Ireland^[23]. Kevin remained under his direction until about the age of twelve, receiving from him a formation at once literary and spiritual^[24]. It was during this period, according to the Life, that a first miracle took place: sent to fetch fire, young Kevin, having received the somewhat hasty order to carry it "in his bosom", obeyed literally — he placed embers and torch against his breast without either his flesh or his garments being harmed^[25].

The three elders: Eogoin, Lochan and Enna

His parents then entrusted him to three elders living retired in a cell: Eogoin, Lochan and Enna^[26]. Under their guidance falls the most famous episode of his youth. Noticed for his beauty by a young woman of the neighbourhood, Kevin was the object of repeated advances; having fled into the woods and hidden himself among nettles, he made a bundle of them to drive the girl off when she found him, stinging her severely until she repented and promised to consecrate her virginity to God^[27]. It is this brief episode, handed down by the oldest Life, which gave birth — much later, in folklore and in a famous poem by Thomas Moore — to the popular legend of a girl named "Kathleen", cast by the saint into the waters of the Glendalough lake: a nineteenth-century romantic embellishment with no foundation in the medieval Life, which at no point mentions any death or any lake in this episode^[28].

A second episode, from the same period, reveals the depth of his humility. Sent to fetch fire by an older namesake, Coemgen the elder, young Kevin, having again carried embers in his bosom unharmed, heard his amazed elder say to him: "O holy youth, I see that thou art full of the Holy Ghost, and that thou shouldst command our community." Kevin, troubled and humbled at the thought that he might be preferred to elders, fled alone, across a desert land, in search of a deeper retreat^[29].

"It must seem absurd that venerable old men should serve under the rule of a foolish young man; but tell this to no one." — Saint Kevin's reply to his elder, according to the Vita Sancti Coemgeni^[30]

Flight to the valley of the two lakes

It was in the course of this flight that Kevin discovered, in the heart of the Wicklow mountains, a wild valley holding two distinct lakes, joined by a watercourse — the future Glendalough, from the Irish Gleann Dá Locha, "the valley of the two lakes"^[31]. He settled near the upper lake, living in the hollow of a tree, feeding on wild herbs and a little water, in utter destitution^[32].

The hollow tree and By's cow

Providence, according to the hagiographical tale, chose to reveal this retreat to the outside world by an unexpected means: a cow belonging to a certain By, whose herdsman led the herd to graze in the valley, took each day to stray from the herd to come and lick the garments of the saint hidden in his tree, before rejoining the other beasts at the hour of return^[33]. This cow gave milk so abundantly that the herdsman, intrigued, ended by following her and discovered the hermit. The tale then takes an almost comic and very human turn: Kevin, vexed at being discovered, sharply rebuked the rustic, whose herd, by way of punishment, spread confusion the following night in the byre — until the saint, taking pity, blessed water to calm the beasts^[34].

Found again by his old masters Eogoin, Lochan and Enna, Kevin was brought back — against his will — to their monastery^[35]. To this stay belongs the episode of the miracle of the reapers: charged one day with the kitchen, Kevin gave to passing pilgrims the food meant for the reapers; rebuked, he prayed in the closed kitchen, and water was turned into wine while bones were miraculously covered with meat — so that there was enough to feed everyone for three days together^[36].

Bishop Lugid, ordination and the first miracles

After a stay with the hermit Beoan — where a famished she-wolf, which had devoured a cow's calf, was brought by his prayer to take its place by supplying the milk^[37] — Kevin joined the community of Bishop Lugid, who ordained him priest^[38]. Under this authority, according to the Life, the first great public miracles multiplied: a thieving perjurer unmasked after falsely swearing his innocence upon relics^[39], two young women beheaded by murderers and miraculously restored to life after Kevin joined their heads to their bodies in prayer^[40], or again a fugitive pursued by twelve enemies, made invisible to their eyes — to the point that they sat down, unknowing, upon his very body, which they mistook for a log^[41]. Sent then to found a cell at Cluainduach — a place some identify with Glendalough itself, others with Luggela — Kevin gathered there a first small community before setting out again towards his native land^[42].

The monster of the lake and the suspended rock

Back at Glendalough, Kevin resumed a hermit's life of extreme rigour. Each night, for a whole hour, he prayed standing in the icy waters of the lake; a monster that haunted the lake, according to the legend, merely swam about him without ever harming him. After a long time, an angel came to put an end to this trial — for three reasons, the text specifies: to relieve the saint of his voluntary austerities, to drive the monster away, and to warm the water of the lake whenever the angel came to rest upon his breast^[43].

To this period belongs the famous "Saint Kevin's Bed", a small cave hollowed in the rock some thirty feet above the waters of the upper lake, which to this day can only be reached by a narrow and perilous passage^[44]. During Lent, an angel warned him three times over that a rock suspended above this cave was about to collapse, and urged him to leave without delay. Kevin answered that he nevertheless wished to remain there until Easter, if it should please God; the angel then promised that the hand of the Almighty would hold up the rock until his departure. On Easter evening, the angel returned to press him to come out; the rock crashed down upon the cave the very instant Kevin, having followed the angel across the lake "with dry feet", had just crossed its threshold^[45].

"O servant of Christ, this rock suspended above thy dwelling will soon collapse upon it: seek therefore promptly another place." — "Strait is the place wherein I dwell, but I desire to remain here during the season of Lent, if it please God." — Dialogue between the Angel and Saint Kevin, according to the Vita Sancti Coemgeni^[46]

The vision of Saint Patrick and Cronán the tanner

One night, as Kevin was singing with his monks a hymn in honour of Saint Patrick, he fell into a silent ecstasy and had the hymn sung three times over; questioned, he revealed that Patrick himself, leaning on his staff, had stood in their midst to bless them^[47]. The following night, Kevin crossed the lake "with dry feet" to go to the place where his city would soon rise; he believed none had seen him, but a tanner of his community, Cronán, had followed him in the same miraculous manner. Kevin then told him that his bones could not rest in the same place as his own, but that he would nevertheless share with him the rest of Heaven^[48].

The angel's dialogue and the foundation of the city

The most theologically dense tale in the whole Life is the long dialogue between Kevin and an angel come to show him the final site of his foundation, "to the east of the little lake". Kevin, at first reluctant to leave the place where he had laboured so much for Christ, objected to the roughness of the site; the angel answered him with a promise whose scope deserves to be quoted in full:

"If thou go, with thy monks, to this place which I show thee, many sons of light shall ever dwell there; this place shall be holy and venerable; the kings and mighty men of Ireland shall honour it with religious reverence because of thee. It shall be enriched with lands, with gold and silver, with precious stones and silken garments, with gifts from beyond the sea, as with royal treasures, in abundance. A great city shall rise there; and the ministry of thy monks shall be so perfect that none of those buried beneath this soil shall know the pains of hell." — The Angel, in the founding dialogue reported by the Vita Sancti Coemgeni^[49]

Kevin nevertheless refused that the four mountains ringing the valley be levelled to make it more fruitful, answering the angel in words in which all his spirituality shines through:

"I desire not that God's creatures be moved because of me, for the Lord can assist my place otherwise; and besides, all the animals of these mountains are sweet and familiar to me, and they would be grieved." — Saint Kevin, answering the Angel, according to the Vita Sancti Coemgeni^[50]

A nobleman of the country, Dymma, owner of the valley, gave the land to Kevin with his eight sons — the ninth, who remained recalcitrant, perished shortly afterwards by crucifixion, according to a prophecy the saint had uttered concerning him^[51]. The foundation of the Glendalough monastery is traditionally assigned to about the year 549, although modern historians lean towards a somewhat later date in the sixth century^[52]. Kevin lived there at first in absolute destitution — lying on the bare ground, clad in coarse skins, with neither fire nor roof — before his disciples persuaded him, out of regard for the nascent community, to temper these austerities somewhat^[53].

The blackbird that nested in his hand

To this period of community life belongs Saint Kevin's most famous legend, popularized much later by Seamus Heaney's poem St Kevin and the Blackbird: as he was praying, arms outstretched through his cell window, a blackbird came to rest in the hollow of his open hand, built its nest there and laid its eggs. Out of respect for the life that had just settled there, Kevin is said to have remained motionless — arm outstretched, without a movement — until the nestlings had hatched and flown away^[54]. This tale, handed down by the saint's medieval Latin Life, has made him, in popular piety, the patron of blackbirds — and one of the most quoted saints whenever Christian tradition wishes to illustrate patience carried to heroism and the saint's harmony with all Creation^[55].

Foelan, the prince entrusted to Saint Kevin

A tanist of Leinster, Colman, whose first repudiated wife had caused by magic the death of all the children born of his remarriage, entrusted his last son, Foelan, to Saint Kevin's protection from birth^[56]. Having neither wife nor cow in his monastery to feed the child, Kevin obtained by prayer that a doe should come each day to be milked to feed him — until a raven, having upset the vessel of milk, drew upon itself a curse that remained proverbial over all its kind^[57]. The sorceress, having learned where the child was hidden, tried to kill him by her spells from the top of a neighbouring mountain; blinded by divine power while Kevin prayed, she ended by falling from the mountain top and breaking herself upon the rocks below^[58]. Foelan grew up under the saint's protection, later reigned over his father's kingdom and distinguished himself, according to the annals, at the battle of Áth Goan in 628, before dying in 665^[59].

Other animal legends and miracles of charity

Other tales attest to the same relationship of Kevin with creation: a workman blinded by a splinter of stone miraculously recovers his sight beneath his hand^[60]; a man found suddenly dead upon the road is restored to life by his prayer and becomes a monk under his rule^[61]; a hard-hearted soldier, vain of his flowing hair, loses it entirely after washing his head with water blessed by the saint, before being converted^[62]. A monk named Berchan, tempted on the road by a young woman, miraculously heard, from afar, Kevin himself tempering the severity of another saint who urged him to chastise him too harshly^[63]. These are, in the very words of the medieval text, the "many like miracles" that accompanied Kevin's spiritual government over his growing community^[64].

The journey to Clonmacnoise and the death of Saint Ciarán

Kevin kept close ties with the other great monastic founders of his time. Going one day to Clonmacnoise, on the banks of the Shannon, to visit his friend Saint Ciarán, he arrived three days after the latter's death. Shutting himself alone in the church where the body lay, Kevin spent the night in prayer; the monks, who remained outside, then heard a conversation between the two saints — Ciarán's spirit having, according to the tale, come back for an instant to animate his body, to speak with his friend and exchange garments with him as a sign of eternal union between their two communities^[65]. This episode is traditionally dated to the year 549, which would make it one of the oldest chronological landmarks of Kevin's life^[66].

The assembly of Uisneach: Columba, Comgall and Cainnech

Learning that three great abbots — Saint Columba, Saint Comgall of Bangor and Saint Cainnech — had gathered at Uisneach, in the centre of Ireland, Kevin went there to strengthen their friendship. On the way, he was attacked by fierce dogs which he calmed with the sign of the cross; at his approach, Columba, though already surrounded by a crowd come to see him, rose to honour him. As rustics present marvelled at such deference, Columba answered them:

"Why, fools, should we not rise at the coming of Kevin, servant of God, when at his approach the angels of the Lord rise in Heaven?" — Saint Columba, at Uisneach, according to the Vita Sancti Coemgeni^[67]

The vision of Fintan Munnu

Another, later episode reports that a demon vanquished by Kevin's prayers complained to a companion in a conversation overheard by Abbot Fintan Munnu (Mo-Chuemóc), who bound the demon with a chain of fire by the power of Christ before warning Kevin of the pilgrimage plan that this same demon had breathed into him^[68]. The vanquished demon is said to have cried out, in a lament the Life reports as a confession of defeat:

"How should I not be sorrowful? I and my confederates have long fought against one man, and we have been vanquished. This place which was ours from the beginning of the world, we can no longer pass through it without being consumed by the flame of his prayer." — A demon, in Saint Fintan Munnu's vision reported by the Vita Sancti Coemgeni^[69]

A contemporary of Kevin, King Brandubh mac Echach, sovereign of Leinster and victor of the famous battle of Dunbolg against the men of the North (c. 597), kept with the saint a relationship of mutual veneration^[70]. One day, a huntsman in the king's service, pursuing a boar into the saint's oratory, saw his dogs refuse to enter it and lie down before the door, while Kevin prayed beneath a tree ringed with birds singing upon his shoulders^[71]. Later, when the men of the North invaded Leinster, the king came to ask the saint's counsel; Kevin answered him according to the human laws of government — that a king must defend the land entrusted to him — and Brandubh, strengthened by this word, won a brilliant victory over the invaders^[72].

One hundred and twenty years of a life ordered to God

Having reached a very advanced age — Irish annalists unanimously credit him with one hundred and twenty years of life — Kevin wished to leave this world to join Christ^[73]. He gathered twelve of his most fervent monks and sent them to pray, at the very place where Saint Patrick had once appeared to him, that God might grant a request he did not reveal to them. At their return, understanding that his prayer had been heard, he confided to them that he had asked to be delivered from the prison of his body, the Lord having once promised him that he would leave this life only at his own asking. He exhorted his brothers faithfully to keep his Rule and the Commandments of God, then blessed them and the place they dwelt in^[74].

The debate over his episcopal status runs through the whole tradition: some ancient authors give him the title of bishop, but nothing in his Life clearly indicates that he received episcopal consecration; the most commonly received opinion is that he remained a simple abbot, Glendalough becoming a full episcopal see only shortly after his death, with his nephew Molibba as its first bishop^[75].

Communion given by Saint Mocherog

His last moments were sweetened by the reception of the Body and Blood of Christ, from the hands of a holy man named Mocherog, while his monks, in tears, stood about him^[76]. He died on 3 June, according to the most widespread tradition in the year 618, although some chronicles give 617 and others 622^[77]. The Annals of the Four Masters laconically record the event:

"The Age of Christ, 617 [...] : St. Coemgen, Abbot of Gleann-da-locha, died on the 3rd of June, having lived until then one hundred and twenty years." — Annals of the Four Masters, trans. John O'Donovan^[78]

Reading the table: the three great series of ancient Irish annals do not agree on the exact year of Saint Kevin's death, within about five years — a frequent fluctuation for figures before the eighth century, whose precise chronology rested on oral transmission before being fixed in writing^[79].

Burial and uncertainty over the exact date

According to an ancient tradition, Kevin was buried in Our Lady's Church at Glendalough, within a small oratory some fifteen feet long; the tomb, now gone, was still visible, it is said, until the middle of the eighteenth century^[80]. For centuries, the Glendalough valley remained a major place of pilgrimage for its patron saint's feast, a devotion that persisted, though discreetly, even under the anti-Catholic penal laws^[81].

A saint never formally canonized

Like almost all Irish saints before the twelfth century, Kevin was never the object of a solemn canonization in the sense the Church has practised it since the twelfth–thirteenth century: his cult was born spontaneously from popular veneration, long before the institution of any centralized Roman procedure. This type of sainthood, termed "pre-congregation", covers the overwhelming majority of the great Celtic founders^[82]. Pope Leo XIII, using the rare procedure known as equipollent canonization — which consists in solemnly confirming an immemorial cult without instructing a canonization process — confirmed Saint Kevin's cult on 19 June 1902^[83].

The Félire Óengusso and the ancient martyrologies

Kevin's liturgical memory is attested by the oldest calendars of the Church in Ireland. The Félire Óengusso (the metrical Martyrology of the monk Óengus the Culdee, late eighth – early ninth century), one of the most venerable documents of Irish piety, celebrates the saint on 3 June in a quatrain:

"A soldier of Christ on the border of Ireland, a name illustrious beyond the wave of the sea: Coemgen, chaste and fair warrior, in the glen of the two broad pools." — Félire Óengusso, ed. and trans. Whitley Stokes, Henry Bradshaw Society, 1905^[84]

The Martyrology of Tallaght (eighth–ninth century), the Christ Church Martyrology of Dublin and the Martyrology of Donegal (seventeenth century) all record a feast in his honour on the same day, under the forms Coemgin, Caoimhghin or Coemgen, abbot of Glenn Dá Locha^[85]. In Scotland itself, where the Irish cult had widely spread, his feast appears in the Kalendar of Drummond and in Thomas Dempster's Menologium Scotorum^[86]. A liturgical office in nine lessons, now lost, was still recited in his honour in Dublin Cathedral in the late Middle Ages^[87].

Patron of Dublin-Glendalough and of blackbirds

Kevin is today venerated as one of the patrons of the Archdiocese of Dublin and Glendalough, the two sees having been united in 1214^[88]. His blackbird legend has made him, in contemporary English-speaking popular piety, the informal patron of birds and nature lovers — a spontaneous reading, yet faithful to the spirit of the medieval tale, which saw in this voluntary stillness an image of charity pushed to the sacrifice of the most elementary comfort.

The patience of the blackbird, a spiritual lesson

Beyond its picturesqueness, the blackbird episode carries a spiritual lesson of great depth, which Christian tradition has always known how to recognize in the heroic patient gestures of the desert saints. Refusing to interrupt his prayer — hence, in a sense, refusing to interrupt his dialogue with God — so as not to disturb the fragile life that had just entrusted itself to him, is to live concretely what Christ teaches of the sparrows: "Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?" (Lk 12:6). The Irish saint, in this, joins a constant intuition of the most ancient monastic spirituality: charity towards creation is not a distraction from the contemplative life, but its most natural fruit, since he who long contemplates the Creator necessarily comes to respect even the least of his creatures.

Union with God through silence and destitution

Kevin's Life insists, chapter after chapter, on an extreme material destitution — bare ground, wild herbs, cold water, no fire — which the saint agrees to temper, at his disciples' request, only in the name of fraternal charity and not from personal laxity^[89]. This hierarchy of values — individual asceticism yields as soon as it hinders the common good of the community — is a characteristic trait of primitive Irish monasticism, which takes up here, without explicitly quoting it, a principle dear to the Eastern and Western monastic tradition: holiness is not measured by the severity of penance, but by the humble docility with which the monk accepts, when needed, to moderate it out of obedience.

His refusal to see levelled the mountains that made Glendalough so harsh, in the name of the friendship binding him to the wild animals of the place, sums up by itself his whole implicit theology of Creation: God can provide for his foundation without anything in the divine work needing to be destroyed for it. Few hagiographical texts of the early Middle Ages carry so explicit an awareness of the proper goodness of the created world, independently of its immediate usefulness to man.

A monastic city become a school

From the monastery founded by Kevin there grew, in the following centuries, one of the great monastic schools of Ireland, comparable for the east of the island to what the Aran Islands were for the west — a centre of sacred study where generations of monks and clerics were formed^[90]. Among the most illustrious figures formed or sheltered there stands Saint Laurence O'Toole, Archbishop of Dublin in the twelfth century, who kept the habit of withdrawing each Lent into "Saint Kevin's Bed" to pray there in a solitude comparable to the founder's^[91]. The monastic site of Glendalough — with its round tower, its ruined churches and the place called "Saint Kevin's Kitchen" — remains today one of the best-preserved monastic ensembles in Ireland, and a treatise attributed to Kevin, preserved in the Book of Leinster — once called the Book of Glendalough — attests to the intellectual radiance of the community he had founded^[92].

A figure still alive

The blackbird legend found, in the twentieth century, an unexpected resonance through the great Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who made it the subject of the poem St Kevin and the Blackbird, published in his collection The Spirit Level (1996) — a modern meditation on self-denial and total presence to the moment, which brought the medieval saint back to a very wide contemporary public, far beyond Catholic circles^[93]. From the silent valley where a young fugitive nobleman had hidden himself in the hollow of a tree there was thus born, fourteen centuries later, one of the pilgrimage sites and spiritual figures most beloved in all Christian Ireland.

• Saint Patrick — the apostle of Ireland, whose hymn Kevin sang at his Glendalough vision.
• Saint Columba — abbot of Iona, who rose to honour Kevin at the Uisneach assembly.
• Saint Columbanus — another great Irish monastic founder of the same century, active on the continent.
• Saint Bede the Venerable — historian of the Celtic Church and of its spread in Great Britain.
• Saint Hilda of Whitby — a figure of the early Celtic Church, contemporary with the golden age of Irish monasticism.
• Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne — monk of Iona, direct heir of the Celtic monastic tradition to which Kevin belongs.